gaining "unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." With true Christian might, then, let us guard our hearts, so that all our hours, and all our deeds shall witness to our triumph — a triumph which shall be more and more complete, until we come off "more than conquerors through him that loved us."

LET US PRAY.

ALMIGHTY FATHER, Thou who hast appointed us to this experience of temptation, we look unto Thee for Thy help. We would know that it is by Thy grace only, that we shall be able to stand in the evil hour. Strengthen us evermore with Thy Spirit. Lift us out of our weakness and poverty. Enrich us with the graces and power of an unyielding virtue, and a genuine piety. Give us constant victory over the world, and receive us, at last, to the joys of the everlasting home. And to Thy name, through Christ, shall be the glory forever. AMEN.

GOD'S LOVE PERPETUAL.

BY REV. W. W. KING. SCRIPTURE LESSON, ROMANS VIII.

For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

ROMANS VIII. 38, 39.

Ir is sorrowful to note how difficult a task man has been compelled to perform, in his endeavor to apprehend God. This great work of life, without which there can be no truly noble achievement, how it runs through and underlies all human history! This has, in some manner, been the work of every soul. Surrounded by the mementos of change and decay; forced to pause daily in his eventful way to weep over the crumbling wrecks of mortality, is plans and hopes as fleeting as the glorious fabrics of his dreams, man has looked anxiously around to find some solution for the solemn mysteries that brood over him. He has longed to find some changeless realities, -some central power, which guides and controls by a lofty purpose and a tender design. Sometimes, he has been oppressed by the

dreadful thought that there might be no such power, or that he might not be cared for in the immensity of being by which he was surrounded; and on account of such a doubt, unspeakably dear becomes the assurance of Christ, that not even a sparrow could fall without God's notice.

It is indeed a solemn inquiry, whether I am the child of an Infinite Father, who watches over me with a sleepless and a changeless love, from which no power can separate me, or an isolated fragment of being, the mere product of physical law, thrown out by material necessity upon the tide, to drift away into eternal silence. If I cherish a belief in the latter, my life is robbed of glory, for it becomes a purposeless play of transient forces; but if I believe the former, then it is crowned with high and noble possibilities, and is at once made the theatre and occasion for heroic endeavor.

In this struggle to find God, most men have found threads of light, have struck some golden veins of reality, and so have been blest in their toil. While the few have sat down wearied and despairing by the way, seeing the clouds of unbelief covering all the sky, and thus have ended their journey in a starless night, the many have found some blessed revelations, some snatches of sunshine, fractional, brief, but, nevertheless, real glimpses of God and Immortality. Man has found in his idea of God, linked with his faculties of faith and worship, a fountain of perennial delight. The crudest conception of God has been invaluable to the soul that

cherished it: so we must not wholly lament man's toil and errors.

The great difficulties, which beset our attempts to apprehend the essential nature of Deity, spring, I think, from our inability to reason from absolute facts and causes, without including the secondary and dependent. Hence, our conclusions are not logical, nor strictly deducible; they are, at best, inferential. I can only predicate final results of what is absolute and eternal. The motive which precedes the purpose, and which must have an inevitable relation to the end to be attained, gives meaning and interpretation to all the means and methods employed in the long process of development. From that which is purely phenomenal, from one or any number of the phases of development, I can predict nothing pertaining to the final result, nor can I with confidence affirm concerning the design which originated the whole scheme.

A single wheel taken from a complicated system of machinery, does not enable me to detect the relation it bears to each and every other part of that system. The examination of that wheel leaves me incompetent to detect the mechanical end, the maker proposes or expects to attain. Besides, that isolated wheel is valueless alone. Whatever purpose it may subserve when in connection with the system of which it forms a needful part, it is robbed of all value the moment it is separated from that system. There are two ways for me to learn its uses: 1st. By the declaration by the designer of the end he

proposes to secure. 2d. By watching the results of the whole system when in operation.

God has employed both of these methods to reveal His character and purpose. He gives us a revelation of His nature and will, and then bids us look upon His stupendous system of Providential design. From His express declarations, I learn His character and will, and then He gives me an earnest of the nature of the final harvest in what I see already ripening. Here, there is something positive upon which I can build my faith; some rock of certainty upon which to rear the ladder of deduction.

Men forget this essential truth, and build their systems of belief upon the secondary and the transient. Nothing but the absolute can be eternal; all else is changing and ephemeral. I can affirm immortality of that only which belongs to or resides in God. He alone is changeless, because He is perfect, and whatever pertains to His nature is an eternal necessity. All else is secondary and subordinate, finding employment in a scheme, which, byand-by, shall be perfected; and whatever is thus employed as a means, must pass away. For this reason, we predict with great confidence, that evil will end, and goodness be at last and forever triumphant. God is good:- therefore, goodness is the rule, evil only the exception; - goodness the law of being, evil only its oscillation;-goodness the great central sun, evil only a transient cloud sweeping across